Keyboard finger-guide



I. HELGUERA.

KEYBOARD FINGER GUIDE.

APPLICATION-FILED 05c. 26, 1919.

1,377,070, Patented May 3, 1921.

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ZIXCVBN 7- U lllm HIM V I; 1! ATTORNEYS UNITED STATES IGNACIQ HELGUERA, OF TBENTON, NEW JERSEY.

KEYBOARD FINGER-GUIDE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 3, 1921.

Application filed December 26, 1919. Serial No. 347,290.

T 0 all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, IGNACIO HELGUERA, a citizen of Mexico and a resident of Trenton, in the county of Mercer and State of New J ersey, have invented a new and Improved Keyboard Finger-Guide, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates to machines or instruments having manually operated keys such as typewriting machines, tabulating machines, typesetting machines, or the like, in which the keys are arranged in banks or associated rows and intended to be so memorized or mastered that it is unnecessary for the operator to look at the keys while operating the machine.

Among the objects of the invention is primarily to provide a means to enable the learner to quickly and easily master the keyboard for the manipulation of a machine or instrument under what is commonly but erroneously called thetouchsystem. Whereas by the sense of touch an operator is able to distinguish between different forms or different temperatures, the keys of a typewriting machine for instance being all alike in form, feel alike and hence the sense of touch cannot be used to distinguish between any two of them. The student owever learns to locate or distinguish between the keys by a sense of habit acquired from knowledge of location of the various keys, and therefore one of the purposes of this im provement is to enable the learner to readily and easily coordinate his muscles in the mastering of the location of the various keys.

With the foregoing and other objects in view the invention consists in the arrangement and combination of parts hereinafter described and claimed, and while the invention is not restricted to the exact details of construction disclosed or suggested herein, still for the purpose of illustrating a practical embodiment thereof reference is had to the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters designate the same parts in the several views, and in which.

Figure 1 is a plan view of a conventional keyboard of atypewriting machine.

Fig. 2'is a vertical sectional view of the same on the line 2-2.

Fig. 3 is a perspective detail view of my im roved finger guide.

ile I show my improvement as applied to a conventional typewriter keyboard it 15 to be understood that the principles involved are adaptable for use in connection with any other style or form of keyboard, the several keys of which are so disposed as to be grouped for manipulation by, prede- :ermined fingers of the hands of the opera- As shown my improvement comprises a series, preferably seven, of fiat strips of sheet material such as cardboard, celluloid, or the like, all of the strips 10 being preferably of the same size and form. Any suitable means may be provided to hold the strips or partitions 10 in proper position for use and in suitable relation to one another. To this end I provide in the partitions near their lower edges and adjacent to the ends thereof remote from the operator a plurality of spaced holes 11 all of which register in all of the partitions and through which supporting rods 12 are loosely threaded. Said rods may have heads or loops 13 at their ends in order to retain the partitions thereon when the device is disconnected from the machine. Said heads also serve toprevent undesired longitudinal sliding movement of the rods.

I show in this instance the provision of seven partitions or plates 10 which are adapted to be arranged between parallel inclined rows 'of keys, the partitions being thus arranged at oblique angles to the axes of the rods. In the manipulation of a typewriting machine it is usual to apportion to the index fingers twice as many keys as to each of the other fingers, and hence. the central partition is spaced from each of the partitions on either side thereof so as to group eight keys to be manipulated by each of the index fingers, while each of the re maining partitions is spaced only a distance of one key from each of the succeeding partitions, thus grouping the keys in fours for all of the other fingers.

As a suitable means for supporting the partitions in position to divide the keys into predetermined groups the rods 12 may be supported directly upon the angle portions of the bars 14 of the two uppermost rows of keys. The remote ends of the partitions are not far from the frame 15 of the machine, and hence it is impossible for the finger guide to become displaced in this direction. After the partitions are placed as indicated it is impossible for any of them to be displaced laterally,.and since the rods are engaged back of the vertical portions of the key bars there is no possibility for the guiding means to be displaced forwardly or downwardly. Since only one key is operated at a time it follows that the rods are supported at all times by all or nearly all of.

the key bars with which they are associated. The Width of the partitions 10 vertically is sufiicient to retain the fingers properly spaced over their respective groups of keys and yet the width or height of the partitions is not enough to cause any discomfort or disadvantage that might tend to interfere with the proper manipulation of the keys.

I claim:

1. In a keyboard finger guide, the combination of a plurality of spaced parallel partitions, each partition having a pair of spaced holes therethrough and a pair of suprods.

2. The combination with a typewriter having keys supported upon angular bars of a pair of rods supported on said bars,-

partitions carried by the rods and said partitions arranged to selectively separate rows of keys.

3. The combination with a typewriter having angular keys supporting bars arranged in rows of a pair of parallel rods, resting on certain of said rows of bars, parallel partitions carried by the rods and disposed at oblique angles thereto, said partitions selectively dividing the keyboard into rows of keys.

IGNAOIO HELGUERIA. 

